dibya’s blogosphere

NEW DELHI: Former PM Jawaharlal Nehru trying to strike a balance between “Soviet friendship and US money”, the growing strength of RSS and

rumours that Subhash Chandra Bose was alive and waiting to make a “big comeback” are some of the concerns about India in the US that have been revealed in documents dating back to the 1950s declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents are based on assessments of a “usually reliable” source whose name has been withheld. The information was sought by RTI activist Anuj Dhar and S C Bose’s relative Madhuri Bose.

On S C BOSE

There is another political note… it may have some real potential danger in it. I was impressed on many occasions by the fact that Subhash Chandra Bose… is still a very popular hero. This expression of great enthusiasm clearly indicated to me that Bose is a National Hero, and in the eyes of the man on the street, I think he ranks next to Ghandi (SIC).

It is now rumoured that… he is alive… waiting for a chance to make a big comeback. Officially, Bose was declared ‘lost’ when the ship he was on was sunk en route from Buram to Japan. Whether Bose is dead or alive is relatively unimportant but the possibility of an imposter should not be overlooked. I have had several educated Indians tell me that the USSR would send an imposter for Bose into India and it would be easy to convince the people that he is Bose. If Bose or an imposter should return, it is probable that a great many of the people would accept his leadership.

On Nehru

I think that Nehru wants both Soviet friendship and US money and to obtain both, he is trying to play both ends against the middle. I don’t know how much Nehru’s tremendous emotionality and racial pride, plus his Kashmir blood, affects his policy. His prepared statements represent a good government position but when Nehru gets in front of a cheering crowd, he seems to go overboard in favour of whatever the crowd is enthusiastic about. His terrific emotionality makes him irresponsible at times and in my opinion, this is his biggest weakness.

On RSS

I am concerned over the strength of the RSS which was demonstrated last spring (1950) when Golwalkar came to Delhi after his release from jail. He drew one of the largest crowds to be drawn by any person in Delhi when acres and acres of enthusiastic people attended one of his speeches. This militant Hindu organisation…have become a great focus for the Hindu refugees.

NEW DELHI: A proposed visit to West Bengal by a fact finding team of the union home ministry is intended to assist the state government maintain

law and order and not to invoke Article 356, Home Minister P Chidambaram assured MPs here on Monday. Article 356 is invoked to impose president’s rule in a state.

“There is no scope for invoking Article 356. It (the central teams’ proposed visit to West Bengal) should not e viewed through the prism of Article 356. It is to assist the state government,” Chidambaram said in Lok Sabha as the house discussed the matter briefly during zero hour.

The home minister said many districts in West Bengal had been witnessing violent clashes between political parties since June 18.

Chidambaram, who said that he had a good working relationship with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, added that he had suggested to the chief minister “a team of officials from centre be sent to the state for discussions with his team of bureaucrats”.

“This step is entirely non-confrontational,” the minister stated and added that this was “for putting an end to the political clashes.”

Participating in the discussion, Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani cautioned the central government on invocation of Article 356.

“Don’t do it lightly. It is a very serious matter,” said Advani who also slammed the Left parties for supporting the then central government in 1992 to invoke Article 356 in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states after the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya.

Terming the government’s decision to send a central team to the state as an “unprecedented” and “unconstitutional” move, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta said law and order is a state subject and no central team had been sent to any other state so far.

If the central government feels there is a breakdown in West Bengal, “let them promulgate Article 356. We shall face it in the streets,” Dasgupta said.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Basudeb Acharia said the central government should desist from interfering in the state’s affairs.

Without naming Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee who is demanding president’s rule in West Bengal, Acharia alleged that the central government’s move was to please a minister.

Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said his party wanted invocation of Article 356 in West Bengal, accusing the Marxist-led government of supporting “terrorism”.

Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said an “all party meeting” should be convened to discuss the issue.

“If this happens in West Bengal today, it can happen to any other state. It is very dangerous,” he said.

Earlier, the house witnessed protest by the Left parties over the issue. They advanced towards the speaker’s podium twice.

The home minister made the same assurances in the Rajya Sabha, after protests by the opposition, principally the Left parties, forced two adjournments of the house.

But Chidambaram’s reply didn’t entirely satisfy the opposition, with Sitaram Yechury of the CPI-M apprehending that the central team’s visit was a precursor to the “misuse” of Article 356.

MUMBAI: It’s unthinkable that a member of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s deep-saffron family will switch to the enemy camp. But that’s what

he reasons for Smita’s decision are two. One, she feels the Shiv Sena is being unfair to Maharashtrians with its parochial and divisive politics and two, she was being systematically marginalised by powerful elements in the Thackeray household.

CHICAGO: Terror suspect Tahawwur Hussain Rana, under investigation for possible links to 26/11, has categorically denied any involvement in the

Mumbai attacks, his lawyer said and asserted that the Pakistani-Canadian “harbours no ill-will” against Indians. 

The statement was the first response from Rana’s side after suspicions arose that he and Pakistani-origin US citizen David Coleman Headley, arrested by the FBI for plotting attacks in India at the behest of Lashkar-e-Taiba, could have links to the Mumbai terror strikes.

“Mr Rana categorically denies involvement in the tragic events in Mumbai of November 26, 2008,” Rana’s lawyer Patrick Blegen said in a statement here.

“He harbours no ill-will against the people of India and continues to have close family ties to the country. In recent years, Mr Rana’s career has been geared toward assisting members of the Hindu and other communities to become legalised and established in the United States and Canada,” he said.

While US authorities have accused Rana and Headley of plotting attacks in India and Denmark, Indian officials are investigating their involvement in 26/11 attacks. However, so far there has been no evidence in this regard.

US President Barrack Obama is dispatching a high-level FBI team to India in a week to share “all details” of its probe into the plans and network of Headley and Rana, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan said on Sunday.

Rana’s bail hearing is scheduled for December 2 when he would offer more than a million dollars in bond security.

Blegen said witnesses would testify about Rana’s clean record and reputation as a businessman as the defence seeks to free him from jail. “They will testify he is not a risk of flight, has ties to the community, that he is regarded as an honest and a trustworthy businessman and has no record whatsoever,” the lawyer said.

“Mr Rana has worked hard and travelled extensively to attempt to build his business. The Indian communities in Chicago, New York and Toronto are a testament to his hard work,” the statement said.

A city resident for the last 10 years, Rana owns an immigration business that has offices in Mumbai He also owns a slaughterhouse near here and a grocery store on the city’s predominantly Indian-Pakistani neighbourhood Devon Avenue.

Bombay is the city I was born in. It became Mumbai in 1997. It is one of the most versatile and vibrant cities in the world, where change is a

constant. I love this city and feel everyone should visit it once in their lives. It’s my favourite place in the whole world. But on November 26, 2008, this city changed completely right in front of my eyes. It changed from being just my favourite city to my dear home. Every Mumbaikar changed from being just another inhabitant to being part of a big family. I realised just how much I love Mumbai.

On November 26 last year, this home of mine was held to ransom by a group of terrorists. It was shrouded in over 60 hours of darkness. My home was under siege and I felt captured, distraught and helpless. More so because I happened to be at one of the 11 locations that the terrorists had attacked — the Taj Mahal hotel at the Gateway of India.

LONDON: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today that several NATO nations will jointly offer 5,000 more troops for Afghanistan, as London

and Washington push allies to take on a greater share of the war burden.

Brown wrote to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to confirm that many of 10 other nations consulted by British officials in recent weeks have pledged to send reinforcements.

“Following these meetings and contacts, I am now optimistic that a majority of these countries will indeed make available increased numbers of troops, and more police trainers and civilian support,” Brown wrote in his letter.

So far, Slovakia has offered 250 extra soldiers, Georgia has pledged between 700 and 1,000 soldiers, and South Korea has said it would send “several hundred” to protect its reconstruction teams.

The United States, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands have long grumbled that many NATO partners — chiefly Germany and France — have failed to take on a fair share of combat duties.

The US has pressed NATO and other allies for between 5,000 and 7,000 additional non-US troops.

Canadian and Dutch, however, troops are both scheduled to begin pulling out of Afghanistan.

BALASORE: India’s nuclear-capable intermediate range Agni-II missile, test-fired for the first time after sunset on Monday, reportedly failed to

get the desired results.

The Army test-fired the surface-to-surface Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) from Wheeler’s Island, Bhadrak district, around 7.50pm.‘‘The liftoff and the first stage separation was smooth. But it faltered just before the second stage separation and behaved erratically, deviating from its coordinated path. Further analysis is on to ascertain the cause,’’ said a source.

The entire trajectory of Monday’s trial was tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars, telemetry observation stations, electro-optic instruments and a naval ship.

The launch, originally scheduled in the first week of this month, was deferred due to some technical snags in its pneumatic system. Though the snags were rectified, another glitch surfaced during Monday’s test, leading to the fiasco, the source claimed.

After the Commonwealth Games Committee, Members of the Parliament on Wednesday slammed Sports Minister MS Gill over delays in the preparation of

the Games project. Rajya Sabha MPs raised concerns during the question hour over the preparations of the 2010 Games to be held in New Delhi.

Cutting across party lines, MPs came down heavily on the slow execution of projects for the 2010 edition of the games. Some of the prominent MPs, including BJP’s Arun Jaitley, Samajwadi Party’s Jaya Bachchan and JDU’s NK Singh, slammed Union Sports Minister MS Gill over the lack of preparations for the showpiece event.

An irked Jaya Bachchan slammed Gill saying, “We are a great nation at laughing at ourselves. This is such a big joke. The Games is going to be the most humiliating experience of this nation.”

JDU’s NK Singh questioned the Games Committee’s commitment towards the building up of adequate infrastructure for the sporting event. He said, “There are too many cooks in the kitchen. All that the statements issued say that the work is on track and will be completed on time, but there is no physical and financial progress of the same.”

Meanwhile, BJP leader Arun Jaitley too took a dig at the Sports Minister saying, “We are in a state of last minute panic. There is a legitimate concern on whether the infrastructure necessary for the Games will be completed on time. We got the project in 2003 and the international committee visited India in 2005. I don’t understand why the stadium construction should have started as late as 2008. There has been an ugly conflict between the international committee and ours. We don’t come up and say that this organisation of the Games is actually a fight against imperialism.”

Earlier during the proceeding of the House, allaying fears of delay in preparation for the Commonwealth Games 2010, Gill assured Rajya Sabha that all state-of-the-art stadia and infrastructure will be completed in time and security steps taken to ensure that the mega event is incident-free.

“The stadia will be completed in time. The Government is investing substantial amounts for upgradation of various stadia to be used for the games. These stadia will become state-of-the-art venues of international standard,” Gill said.

In a statement on the Calling Attention on the preparation for Commonwealth Games, he said that the financial sanctions for all the stadia, estimated to cost around Rs 4,100 crore, have been accorded and “work is progress at a rapid pace”.

He said work on three stadia — Dr SPM Swimming Complex, Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range and the Cycling Velodrome – had a delayed start due to some design issues. The Group of Ministers, constituted for the Games, review the progress every week, Gill said.

The Minister said the Games Village was being developed near Akshardham Temple by the Delhi Development Authority on Public-Private-Partnership model and the work is being closely monitored by the Ministry of Urban Development. “The work is well on schedule and will be completed in time”, he said.

WASHINGTON: Bull in a China shop is not an expression one would normally use to describe India’s mild-mannered Prime Minister, but at a

Washington think-tank on Monday evening Manmohan Singh was anything but delicate on India’s newly nettlesome neighbor before an audience that is largely in thrall of the Middle Kingdom’s meteoric rise on the global stage.

In candid remarks that were keenly scrutinized in the context of New Delhi’s niggling troubles with Beijing and US overtures to the country, Dr Singh offered an Indian perspective on rising China that included an admission that lately, ”there is but a certain amount of assertiveness on the Chinese part. I don’t fully understand the reasons for it.”

Singh prefaced that comment by telling his audience that India recognized that it has a long standing border problem with China which it was trying to resolve it through dialogue. In the meanwhile both countries have agreed that pending the resolution of the border problem, peace and tranquility should be maintained in the border line. ”Having said that I should say that I have received these assurances from Chinese leadership from the highest level,” he added, suggesting that Beijing was not entirely sticking to the script.

But for that one discordant, complaining note vis-à-vis Beijing, Singh indicated that India was on the same page as the rest of the world on China, wanting to prepare for its peaceful rise as a major power. ”So, engagement is the right strategy for India as well as for United States. We ourselves have tried very hard to engage China in the last five years and today China is one of our major trading partners,” he said.

Singh remarks came against the backdrop of President Obama’s own visit to China last week in course of which some Indian analysts felt he (Obama) was sub-contracting or outsourcing oversight of South Asian peace and security to the East Asian giant and accepting it as a rising if not equal partner, to the detriment of India. That episode came on the heels of India’s renewed tensions with China on the border issue, and over the travels of Dalai Lama to regions Beijing regards as disputed.

Singh was also unexpectedly tetchy about comparisons between Indian and Chinese economic growth, saying while there is no doubt that Chinese performance is superior to India’s, ”there are other values which are important than the growth of Gross Domestic Product.”

”I think the respect for fundamental human rights, the respect for the rule of law, respect for multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious rights, I think those have values. So, even the Indian perforce with regard to the GDP might not be as good as the Chinese, certainly I would not like to choose the Chinese path,” he said in unusually blunt remarks that constituted a criticism of the Chinese model.

Singh’s candid public statements on China, Pakistan (no purposeful talks till it abjures terrorism and acts on 26/11), and Afghanistan (insisting India will stay the course against Taliban and asking US and international community to do the same militarily) set the stage for his meeting with US President Barack Obama on Tuesday following a ceremonial state welcome on the South Lawns of the White House.

NEW DELHI: The search for the divine has ended at more earthly pleasures. Two independent studies have pointed to a disturbing trend that

pilgrimage centres are changing complexion to become hubs for sex tourism. Alarmingly, it is children that are the most vulnerable.

A nationwide study by NGO Gram Niyojan Kendra commissioned by the ministry for women and child development — that studied 68 places of tourist interest — found that after major cities and places for sightseeing, pilgrim centres were a growing hub.

Incidentally, the report said that domestic tourists were “overwhelmingly involved” in sex with commercial sex workers while foreign tourists were “engaged” in paedophilia and sex with minors through short-term marriages. The study, however, clarified that foreign tourists visiting India for sex were restricted to a few places rather than the entire country.

A study by Bangalore-based NGO Equations earlier this year has said that increasing number of cases of child abuse were being reported from pilgrim sites like Tirupati, Guruvayoor and Puri. The study — ‘Protecting Children from Sexual Exploitation in Tourism: The Indian Context’ — looked into exploitation of male children, but pointed out that the same was true for women as well.

Both reports have also pointed to the lack of legislation at the state level or detrimental measures to control sex offenders from revisiting sites. Troubled by reports of such blatant violations, the Union tourism ministry is now working on a code of conduct for ethical tourism.